


Companionship

by theworldisblue



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: AU?, Flashback, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Late Night Conversations, Light Angst, Minor Injuries, Nanda Parbat, The League of Assassins (DCU), a sweet moment between them, like super really soft, mentions of damians artistic side, no beta we die like robins, slight plot, theyre little, this is most definitely ooc for mara, this is really soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 12:54:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30022086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theworldisblue/pseuds/theworldisblue
Summary: Grandfather would be ashamed at his weakness - this Damian knew - and he wondered privately if perhaps Mara was right. If perhaps the moon was quite a lousy companion after all.
Relationships: Mara al Ghul & Damian Wayne
Kudos: 6





	Companionship

**Author's Note:**

> I once read a really soft fic about Damian that had flashbacks to his time in Nanda Parbat and there was a few sweet moments with Mara. I pretty much fell in love with how gentle the concept is that they would find comfort in one another in such a terrible place so this story was born. 
> 
> I also just love the idea that Damian has a weird companionship with the moon because of his loneliness. That take is probably 100% projection, but I guess that's fanfiction for you.

The room was dark. That was precisely the exact thing Damian noticed as he laid awake on the stone. In the hours spent in this foreign room, Damian had also deduced it was damp and bare. Not unusual for one of the confinement rooms, but still relevant considering there was literally nothing else to focus on. 

Except for perhaps his throbbing wrist, which seemed to ache more as the night bore on. It was surely broken, only fractured if he was lucky, and it wasn’t like he was in an immediate position to treat it. Maybe if it had been winter the room would be cold enough to distract him from the pain. 

There was nothing to distract. His ankle did hurt a bit, though the manacle around it would need to be red-hot to truly get Damian’s full attention. Besides, laying flat on the floor, Damian could hardly feel it anyway. 

This would have to go down as one of the worst confinement nights in awhile. A lot of the time he had just come from punishment, which usually meant a blessful passing out before the morning hours even came upon him. Other times he was simply too tired to stay awake, even as the brick pattern beneath him stamped into his bare back. 

But, no, there was no exhaustion. No distraction. What did he have? A broken wrist. That was all, truly, that accompanied Damian in the little room. 

Of course, until a figure showed up in the doorway. At first Damian thought it might be morning already and one of his Grandfather’s men had come to fetch him. Yet, the figure was too short, to feminine to be one of the fearful assassins that roamed the compound. At second glance he thought it might be his mother. But Talia was tall and all elegant curves. Damian could recognize his mother even in pure blindness and this was not her. 

He used his good hand to push himself to a sitting position - something that ached more than he wanted to admit - and tried to get a better view at whomever had come to visit him. The small figure grew closer and soon Damian could make out wild hair and a familiar build. It might have been dark, but Damian could identify her easily.

“Mara,” he said softly, as she approached. The girl smelled like soft leather and dust as she leaned over him - just as she had since they were kids. 

“Shh, be silent or they might hear,” she said. 

Damian heard the chink of metal before he could feel the manacle on his ankle fall away. He looked in her direction quizzically. 

“What are you doing?”

He could almost hear her laugh as two hands grabbed his wrists and pulled him to his feet. He had to bite his lip to keep from crying out. He swore he could feel his jagged bones scrape against each other in her grasp and therefore wrenched his wrist away a bit too quickly as he stumbled to stand.

Mara said nothing. His feet prickled from the sudden touch with the stone floor. He was feeling quite lucky now that it was not winter after all. 

“Come,” Mara said after he had his bearings, “we must hurry.”

She grabbed his uninjured hand - which was a problem he would have to deal with later - and led him out of the confinement room. Damian could do nothing more than follow behind her. Her feet were quick and silent beneath her and Damian’s mirrored them. 

There were several smaller halls - very maze-like due to their close vicinity to the dungeons - that were lit with a yellow candlelight. In it Damian could see Mara more clearly. Her brown hair was down, which is something he did know in the dark, but he had missed the different twisting shades that bounced before him now. He had considered a few times what it would be like to paint her hair. She had strands that seemed to be as stark black as Damian’s, while others were a glossy brown like his mother’s. Sometimes, in the sunlight he could see a few as light as the chestnuts they would smuggle after dinner. 

Other than her hair - which fell past her shoulders, well past the time to be cut - Damian registered her boots with envy. As well as the long sleeve she was wearing. He would sure like a shirt. Even an undershirt like the one Mara had on. 

They came to wider halls, lit with lamps now and far more grand. This was a surefire sign that they were no longer in the lower levels and much closer to running into someone they shouldn’t. 

Damian knew from the way they were moving higher in the compound where exactly they were going. He also knew they had to pass their grandfather’s throne room in order to get there. They had done it successfully before, yes, but Damian couldn’t help but imagine the man’s green-eyed anger were he to catch them. He was already in trouble enough. 

The journey wasn’t usually a long one, but this time they had come from the dungeons on the lower levels. Damian hoped idly that Mara had accounted for the extra time before getting him, for if they were just one minute off they could fail. 

But as she pulled him into the shadows of the hallway - a lamp was luckily unlit, allowing a small area of darkness - just in time for the upcoming guards to make their way, Damian reminded himself of Mara’s cleverness. They would make it. After all, they always did. 

The minute the guards had turned the corner, Mara was off again, fleeing the hall as Damian followed. They moved up past all of the rooms for training and living quarters for the men. They passed the canteen, which would be empty this time of night, or so Damian assumed. 

Never did she falter and never did he. When they made it past the throne room, the rest of the way might as well have been a breeze. There weren’t many guards in the highest levels, especially not in the attic rooms, therefore they moved through swiftly. 

The hallways were small again, lit with candles that were burned far too low to last long. They took one last corner, which was met with a narrow flight of stairs. And from there, another long hallway stretched in front of them. Here now was closed off rooms, chained up and full of dust due to disuse. Except the uppermost floor’s interior was entirely wood - probably from lack of renovation over the years - allowing more flexibility to getting around the doors than stone would. 

There was a rotting piece of wood, bowed away with years of pressure and curving. It was ready to snap and the larger the two children grew, the closer it got to breaking. However, that was the sort of problem they would deal with when it ever came. Damian hoped it would not come today as he watched Mara squeeze through the opening the bending board could produce with ease. He followed, feeling splinters fall in his hair as he did so.

The room was small, with peeling wood walls and forgotten objects surrounding the perimeters. Boxes with broken weapons and outdated textbooks, a few personal items that most likely came from a centuries-old torture victims. None of these things intrigued the two, however. 

No, the focal point of this secret place they risked to hide out in was a hole in the roof, close to the left corner. It might have been caused from rot, or perhaps leftover from an old attack on the compound that was simply overlooked. 

Through the hole, which was perfectly angled up to the sky, there was an unobstructed view of just a piece of sky. Sometimes, if the night was lucky, Damian could turn his neck in just the right angle to catch glimpses of the moon. Mostly, it was just a spot crowded with a formidable wall of stars. 

He stood under the opening now, turning to try to catch the moon just on the edges, as Mara dug behind a few of the old boxes, causing some dust and splinters to rise in the air. Damian turned to her idly for a moment, registering what she was doing, before looking back to the moon. 

She moved towards him. 

“Let me see,” her eyes were steady, watching him.

“See what?”

“Sit,” she pointed to the floor where he stood. He sat, but did so in just the spot where the moon was still visible through the roof. 

“It is at a crescent tonight,” he said as she settled herself in front of him.

“So?”

She grabbed his wrist - the injured one - and turned in over in her hands. He might have pulled it away, but she was handling it gently enough that Damian did not protest. She obviously knew it was hurt. It would be a waste to attempt hiding it now. 

“How did you do this?”

He looked to her, registering the thing she had retrieved from behind the boxes as a first aid kit. There was a small bubble of gratitude that formed within him, but he said nothing of it. 

“Bad landing,” he responded.

They lapsed into silence. He could feel her quiet frustration, like she was outlining a lecture in her mind. She probably was. He might have tried to appeal to her, explain himself, but there was nothing to say. She most likely already knew anything he could try to offer and, besides, Damian was never one for explanations anyway. 

There was a sharp stab of pain that ran straight through his forearm as she set the bone. He kept his eyes on the moon the entire time, gritting his teeth and counting the stars when it hurt badly enough that he would have to resist snatching his hand away. 

“A sorry mistake,” she said, her voice dangerously close to the lecture she was undoubtedly fine-tuning. The chafed skin on his ankle itched. 

“Yes.”

“You must do better next time.”

“Yes.”

The sky was bright this night. The stars seemed to shimmer and the moon called down to him. His mind would outline paint colors sometimes that he could use to capture her shining existence, but he could never seem to imagine it correctly in his head. Perhaps, some things simply couldn't be painted. 

“I am speaking to you,”

Damian peered back at her. In the waning moonlight, which came falling into the room in jagged shards, her eyes were impossibly dark. They looked like large black pits, endless and all-consuming. If Damian didn’t know those eyes so well, he might have been frightened. 

“Yes, I know.”

She sighed, but it sounded more like a grumble, “You have seen the moon before.”

“I know.”

Mara’s head was bowed over his hand now, wrapping it roughly. Her gentle touch was corrupted by her frustration with him.

“Why the obsession, then?”

The question was curious enough, but she asked it critically. 

He looked out the opening, a honorary window to the rest of the world in his eyes, once more. 

“There is no obsession.”

“You lie,” she responded tightly. 

Damian considered how he would answer her for a moment. How could she be made to understand it? The moon was forever. Even as empires fall and rebuild and people die, some even at his own hand, the moon will always remain. And the stars, which can sometimes feel as old as time itself, will someday fizzle away. But the moon? It is sooner to fall from the sky then fade away without a trace. How does he explain to Mara that one day his mother will fall, for everyone loses a battle eventually? That soon the Lazarus Pit will seize to work on Grandfather? That she is as temporary as a sunrise? How does he say that in his world he is destined to one day be completely alone, except for the moon, who will last longer than he could hope to. 

But it sounded dumb even in his own mind. The fears of a needy child, that is all. He was to take over as the Demon’s Head in his future. There was no place for a want for companionship. He could not be afraid of being alone. 

“The moon doesn't change. Not many things in this world can say that,” was all he said. 

“The moon is not of this world Damian. If it were, the men would have reached her by now. They would have ruined her.”

He startled at this, looking back at her just in time to see the softened set of her face. He watched as she finished the wrap on his hand and fastened it into place. The young girl scooted closer to him, until their knees were almost touching, and peered up into the pocket of the sky they were fortunate enough to have all to themselves. 

In the new angle, Damian could see the deep green of her eyes clearly. They glittered in the spotlight, just as he always remembered them. 

“My trainer says the moon is a goddess. That is what the people of old times believed.”

He never knew why he would say things like this to Mara. It was almost always met with a refute, an angry reminder that he was to be focusing on better things. Training, fighting, strength. That was all Mara ever said to him. But every now and then he could get her to indulge him for only a moment and he endeavored every time to hear her soft perspective. 

He didn’t get that this time. 

“You know those are only ridiculous stories.”

And he should have taken this as a sign. The moment had passed and she would entertain his silly ideas no more. But, something about Mara made Damian want to share things. If only just to feel a little less like a floating ice-burg out at sea. Mara was an anchoring force, something to keep him tethered to the world.

“So? What difference does it make if I choose to believe them? The moon still does not change and neither does my place in the world.”

“It is a waste of your time.” 

Her eyes did not leave the stars above their heads and Damian’s eyes did not leave her. 

“So is this, yet here you are.”

Her gaze snapped back down to him. There was a warning glare. Damian looked away, taking the hint and letting silence take hold of them. 

If you asked him who he trusted most in the world Damian’s answer would be his mother every time. And if you asked him who he regarded with the highest level of respect in all the world he would refer to his grandfather in a heartbeat. 

But Damian could not have conversations such as this one with Grandfather or his mother. He could not tell them of the moon or clue at his love for pointless stories. Mara, though icy in her exterior, was the only one he could truly tell things to. 

Except it was only in moderation he could open up to her. After all, they were still warriors, trained so that they might be worthy of the al Ghul name one day. She was right when saying there is no place for such things between them. So when he spoke of the moon, such as he had this night, he had to be careful the large words would not take up too much room. That she would not feel too crowded within all of the honesty and storm away, leaving him alone. 

They sat together for what felt like a personal eternity. The silence was complete, but not oppressive. And the moon, which stayed stationed up in the sky, never did change, just as he knew it would not. 

It was moments like this, like little infinities between just the two of them, Damian could truly feel relaxed. And the moonlight that blanketed over them and crowned their heads with halos of dusty luminescence, filled up his heart and barred out all the fear. He believed, truly, that as long as there was a moon he would never be completely alone. 

It was only when the moon was so low in the sky that they could no longer crane their necks to even catch it in the perimeter of the skylight that Mara rose. Her shirt was covered in dust and splinters and Damian was sure he looked just as dirty. She tenderly moved towards the warped plank of wood, which looked particularly sad in the shadows. 

He was watching her leave, trying not to shiver in the sudden cold that came upon her immediate absence, when she turned back to him. She was crouched just in front of their makeshift door, all shadows and shapes, when she said:

“Tomorrow, Damian, when Grandfather sees your wrist and you are punished for lying, I want you to think of how useful learning that story of the goddess in the moon was to you,” she looked at him steadily, “I want you to decide how worth it it truly was.”

And then, she was gone with the swift skill that could only be recognizable in an al Ghul. 

It was just Damian now, left in a silence and darkness that mirrored that of the confinement rooms quite perfectly. Even the dull throbbing of his wrist, which was expertly wrapped now, felt like a terrible case of déjà vu. 

Even the moon, which was completely out of view now, and replaced with dozens of little stars, had left him. And the child’s fear - the one that screamed at him only in moments as perfectly lonely as this - rose up unbidden once more. 

Grandfather would be ashamed at his weakness - this Damian knew - and he wondered privately if perhaps Mara was right. If perhaps the moon was quite a lousy companion after all. 

**Author's Note:**

> There is precisely zero editing in this so I am aware it's probably riddled with mistakes. I hope you like it anyway.


End file.
